


Photograph

by GaryTheFish



Series: Hope is a Four Letter Word [32]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Loki - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 07:57:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7676422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaryTheFish/pseuds/GaryTheFish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An assignment with some unexpected perks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photograph

Aeslin left the car in the employee parking lot, and they headed for the tram. There were only a few hours left before her flight; she had opted to go with him to work and hitch a ride from headquarters to the airport. She tucked her hands into her pockets as she walked, messenger bag bumping gently against her hip. Loki pulled her suitcase behind him, its wheels rattling across the designs in the sidewalk.

“Going to see me off at the airport?” she asked.

“If you’d like, but I hadn’t planned to. I’d much rather be there when you come home instead.” He stopped, a little panicked. “ _Back_. Back… here.” He cleared his throat gently. “When you come back.”

She nudged him as they walked; he looked down with a sheepish grin, and she tucked her arm through his. “That works,” she said with an answering smile.

***

Her office was quiet; the room itself seemed to know that she was gone. Loki let the door fall shut behind him, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim light. He walked the edges of the room, touching each of her plants in turn, feeling the soil with his fingertips. None except one would need watering today, he knew, but he had also promised her to check all of them, just in case.

He hadn’t been in her office in a few weeks; she had been spending the bulk of her working hours at the stables, and they generally gravitated to his area when she was at headquarters. Loki sat at her desk, pulling out the spray bottle for the air plant that sat next to the desk phone she refused to use. He idly wondered if they had replaced it after she had superglued the thing together to make a point; a brief test showed it was the same one, and he laughed a little as he gently doused her plant with spritzes of water.

That’s when he noticed the pictures. Four of them, clustered near her second monitor and each in a different style frame. He’d never seen them before, and he had been in her chair often enough that he would have noticed them. She wasn’t hiding them, at least; he wondered when they had appeared. He looked at them curiously.

_(We keep this love in a photograph)_

The first was of a woman with a toddler. She sat on a beach in profile, grey-blue water stretching out behind her and auburn hair spiraling out from beneath a hat. The little girl stood in front of her, curls plastered to her head with seawater and arms full of shells. She was in the act of handing one to what Loki could only assume was her mother, and the woman’s face was lit by a smile that was heartbreakingly familiar and foreign at the same time.

_(We made these memories for ourselves)_

He recognized the girl in the second one; it wasn’t the same picture in the Tempest file, but it had been taken around the same time, he thought. The smile was her mother’s, but the rest of her favored her father, all gangly limbs and suppressed energy. They had clearly just finished some sort of competition in the photo; they held silver medals in front of matching blue shirts with what appeared to be flames on the sleeves. She barely reached her father’s chest in the picture, her cheek crushed against his jersey and his arm tight around her shoulders.

 _(Where our eyes are never closing / Hearts are never broken_ _  
_ _And time's forever frozen still)_

The third was more recent; probably only a few years old at the most, and upon closer inspection, Loki realized that there was a second, smaller picture tucked into the frame. It showed two people facing away from the camera, leaning on a railing. The suit was unmistakable, as were the pair of wings on the back of her hoodie, one he had seen her wearing time and again before it had been stained with blood and damaged beyond repair. She looked out across New York, but Coulson was in profile as he looked at her, and what Loki saw in his expression made his chest ache. Pride, devotion, love, all three ferocious and there for anyone to see. In that moment, he knew exactly why Fury had never informed Coulson about the experiments, and he knew exactly why Aeslin was alive and Coulson was not. It was all there, right in his face.

He looked at the larger picture, the two of them sitting on a bench and covered in rainbows of splattered paint. Coulson’s arm stretched behind her along the back of the battered bench, the fingers of his other hand making a V; his smile was sleepy and a little smug. Her body was turned slightly toward his, and she was in the act of drawing on his face with a green-smudged finger.

 _(You can fit me / Next to your heartbeat where I should be_ _  
_ _Keep it deep within your soul)_

He looked at the fourth frame for a long minute before picking it up. This one also had a second picture stuck into the frame, and he found himself staring at his own face. He recalled the moment; a scenic stop near Marble Canyon. It had been chilly but not unbearably so, and as a joke, he had given her his coat as well as her own. In the photo, he stood at the edge of the overlook, leaning against the railing with a smile on his lips. Every worry was gone, every visible scar from the battle healed, and he almost didn’t recognize the peace on his face. He touched the image gently before turning his attention to the other.

 _(Loving can heal, loving can mend your soul / And it's the only thing that I know, know_ _  
_ _I swear it will get easier / Remember that with every piece of you)_

Sushi night. One of several, and he remembered it well. Rhodes had received a new camera for his birthday; he had spent the evening testing it out. Loki had seen some images over the ensuing days, but not this particular one. He recalled the moment, though, standing in the kitchen with a handful of chopsticks. She had been next to him, and when Rhodes had tried to take their picture, making a joke about having to tilt the lens to accommodate their height difference, she had promptly clambered up Loki’s back, arms around his neck and legs around his waist to bring their heads together. He had been startled, his hand going to cover hers automatically as he had almost fallen backward against the sudden weight, pulling them both upright just as the camera went off. He smiled at the memory, recognizing the surprise and happiness in his own grin, smashed slightly off-kilter by her cheek against his.

_(You won't ever be alone)_

Loki leaned back a little in her chair, tucking the bottle of water back into her drawer. His phone went off, and he pulled it out, smiling at the image on the screen before swiping his thumb across and putting it to his ear. He stood and walked across the room.

“Morning, _elskan_ ,” he said, then grinned at her voice. “Not much,” he replied after a moment. “Just checking on your plants.”

_(Wait for me to come home)_

**Author's Note:**

> This one was a song prompt given to me by my original beta reader, months ago, and I've just been waiting to post it. :) Please let me know what you think! Feedback is always loved and appreciated and hoarded. (Feel free to send me prompts, and I'll see what I can do. (I've got one that I'm still trying to figure out, but I'll get it eventually). Leave one in the comments or hit me up on tumblr @sweetmauleymalloy if'n your interested.) :D
> 
> Love you all!
> 
> Title and lyric by Ed Sheeran.


End file.
